Oldest cityscape

Ypres from a bird's eye view, 1562

Visitors to the museum will undoubtedly linger at the oldest known city plan of Ypres by Thevelin-Destreez from 1564. The giant model in the Ypres Museum is based on this city plan. You literally step into the medieval city. Your imagination comes to life. The recent acquisition of a townscape from 1562 gives us an even better picture of Ypres in days gone by. Hieronymus Cock drew this copper engraving in 1562. It shows the town and its fortifications at the time from a bird's eye view. The Cloth Hall and the Great Market Square are in the centre, with various churches, fortification towers, mills and the street pattern alongside. The engraving is surprisingly detailed. However, the map should be read critically. For example, the representation of St. Peter's Church is not entirely historically accurate.

Hieronymus Cock

Hieronymus Cock (1507-1570) made this print in 1562. He opened his print publishing company Aux Quatre Vents (In the Four Winds) in Antwerp at the same time as the publishing company of the world-famous Christoffel Plantin. Cock was one of the first leading print publishers in the Low Countries. He collaborated with various artists on the design drawings. Specialised etchers and engravers then cut the drawings into copper plates. One of these artists was the famous painter Pieter Bruegel. The Plantin-Moretus Museum has several of these Breugel prints published by Hieronymus Cock in its collection. Figurative city maps were very popular during this period. Thanks to the technique of woodcut or copperplate printing, it was possible to print multiple copies on paper. Hieronymus Cock published the copper engraving in 1562 with the intention of distributing it as a separate print.

Fantasy

The print shows Ypres from a bird's eye view. It is clearly from a different angle than the Thevelin plan, which has a vertical projection. In the 16th century, the illustrative character of geographical maps, city maps and cityscapes became increasingly important in graphic art. Lodovico Guicciardini (1521-1589) used the print as an illustration in his first Italian edition of “Descrittione de tutti i Paesi Bassi, altrimenti detti Germania inferiore” in 1567. Braun and Hogenberg later did the same and included an adaptation in their editions. Each copy became increasingly imaginative. Beautiful, but unfortunately this meant that the work lost its documentary value. Today, editions by Hieronymus Cock can be found in important museum and archive collections.

Commercial talent

Hiëronymus Cock was the son of the painter Jan Wellens de Cock (c. 1480-c. 1521) and the brother of the landscape painter Matthijs Cock (c. 1503-c. 1547). In the mid-16th century, Antwerp was an important centre for etching and engraving.

Hieronymus Cock played an important role in this. His high-quality artistic approach, combined with his commercial talent, made him one of the most important print publishers of his time. When he died in 1570, his wife Volxcken Dierickx continued the business for another thirty years.

Following an exhibition in 2013 organised by the Royal Library of Belgium, Museum M Leuven, the Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt and Illuminare, Study Centre for Medieval Art at KULeuven, an extensive article on the life and work of Hiëronymus Cock appeared in OKV.

Would you like to discover more cityscapes of Ypres in the collection?

collectie.ieper.beConstandt, Hugo, Dewilde, Jan, Vandewiere, Frederik, Ieper in(ge)prent. Ypres through the graphic arts from the 16th century to the present day. Ypres, Municipal Museums of Ypres, 2010.